Summary

Number 7 knitted St Kilda Football Club jumper worn by St Kilda AFL footballer Nicky Winmar during his celebrated stand against racism in sport, after St Kilda won against Collingwood, at Victoria Park Football Ground, on the 17th April, 1993.

Following the 1993 season changes to the club's jumper meant the jumper could not be reused the following year. After being relegated to a cupboard, as a personal souvenir of a memorable day, Winmar traded the jumper the following year with American basketball player Tim O'Brien. O'Brien took the jumper back to his home city of Texas and hung it on the wall, along with numerous other sporting uniform pieces from around the world, obtained through similar exchanges. He offered the jumper to the Museum in 2012.

Physical Description

Knitted woollen 1993 St Kilda Football Club jumper, with sewn on number 7, AFL and club badges and sponsor's logo.

Significance

After a post siren goal by team mate Stuart Loewe, which resulted in a 22 point win to St Kilda over Collingwood, Winmar raised his fists in the air in celebration of his team's first win at Victoria Park since 1976. Incensed by this overt victory celebration, and by his and fellow Aboriginal team mate Gilbert McAdam's impressive performances during the game, members of the Collingwood Cheer Squad took aim at Winmar with a tirade of racial abuse. This abuse had been occurring during and even prior to the game. Winmar's reaction was to lift his jumper and point at his skin with his left hand middle finger, uttering 'I'm black and I'm proud' and then follow this gesture up by blowing his detractors a kiss, before embracing McAdam.

This spontaneous act may have become nothing more than an interesting anecdote, or forgotten altogether, had it not been captured on film by two photographers: Wayne Ludbey from The Age and John Feder from The Herald Sun. The photograph made an minor appearance in both paper's Sunday editions, but it was not until Monday, when it featured in an article entitled 'Time for racism to be on report', by The Age journalist Gary Linnell, that Ludbey's photograph, and the gesture, became a symbol for the previously untackled subject of racism in Australian Rules Football, and Australian sport in general.

While some people may argue that the real power is in the image, the jumper highlights the human scale of Winmar's action, and that the most important political statements are often made spontaneous by ordinary people going through their daily lives.

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